New Q&amp;A for City of Heroes

NCsoft has released a new Q&A for
their upcoming City of Heroes Issue 13 update. The Q&A, which concerns powersets
in the new update, was done by Floyd Grubb, senior designer on the game, and can
be read in its entirety below.

New Powerset Q&A with Floyd Grubb,
senior designer

1. How did you come up with Pain
Domination for villains this time around?

One of the long standing ideas with
regards to our powers has been that villains aren’t “empathetic” and as such,
should not be given the Empathy powerset. Players, however, wanted Empathy, or
at least certain aspects of the Empathy set. So, we sat down and kicked around a
few ideas, none of which panned out, until someone came up with the concept of
“Pain Domination.” For whatever reason, the name grabbed our interest and gave
us a theme to work around. We proceeded to design out the set based on the theme
of “Controlling, giving and taking away pain.” It would have been very easy to
cross the ESRB Teen rating with such a thing, so we were very careful to ensure
that nothing crossed the line, despite the thematic temptations.

2. What made you decide to put in
shields? Do you think any certain type of player will enjoy these?

A while back, we ran a poll on the
forums asking which powersets players were most looking forward to. Shields won
the poll. However, due to technical limitations we weren’t able to deliver
Shields at the time, so we went with Willpower instead. We then used Issue 12’s
Cimeroran NPC group as a tech testbed for shields and ironed out most of the
kinks, leaving us able to deliver Shields as a Player Powerset in Issue 13.

As for what types of players will
enjoy the shields powerset, it will appeal to players who try to re-create
Viking Warriors, or Medieval Knight type characters, as well as those who are
looking to create new unique characters. Combining shields with our current
powers and costume pieces just continues to expand our character options.

3. What archetypes will best
enjoy each power?

Pain Domination is a perfect fit for
both Corruptors and Masterminds, with the caveat that it may be *too good* for
the later. We’re watching closely during the beta period to ensure that things
remain in balance with other powersets available to those Archetypes. Shields,
on the other hand, are a fantastic Tanker set. They work well for Brutes and
Scrappers too, but Tankers, whose main role lies in helping to protect other
members of their teams, will see the best benefit of powers like Grant Cover,
which adds defense to teammates near the user.

4. Can you explain the basic
process for getting new powers like these into the game?

Our basic process is we come up with
an idea for how we want the powerset to progress, then spec out individual
powers as far as what we want them to do. We send that to the animation
department, and they make things look cool, while we fiddle with numbers
establishing an initial balance point. Once we have the final visual FX, we do
another balance pass, and then send it off for testing.

5. What do you think is the
coolest villain power and the coolest hero power in the game right now?

I still think Ghost Widow’s Soul
Storm power is the coolest power on the villain side. Players who select her as
a patron get a version of that power, as well. I just love the visuals of it. On
the hero side, I’ve always been a fan of the Battle Axe set.

6. What do you have to do to get
the pain domination & shield powers? How do you think players will use them?

Both Shields and Pain Domination are
available to new characters. You don’t need to do anything special to unlock the
powersets.

Pain Domination will be a hit with
folks who were looking for specific types of buffs combined with extreme healing
capabilities. It will be very difficult to be defeated with someone using Pain
Domination on the team. Between healing, increasing your damage capability,
increasing your foes’ vulnerability to damage and helping to ward off incoming
damage in the first place, it’s an extremely powerful set.

Shields is a great mix of offense,
defense and team buffing all rolled into one powerset. It’s a jack of all trades
set, and pretty good at all aspects it tries to cover.